Examination on eye portions is widely practiced for the purpose of early diagnosis of life-style related diseases and various kinds of diseases ranking high in causes of blindness. In a health check or the like, it is required to find a disease in an entire eye portion, and hence an examination using an image covering a wide range of an eye portion (to be referred to as a wide-area image hereinafter) is indispensable. A wide-area image is obtained by using, for example, a fundus camera or SLO (Scanning Laser Opthalmoscope).
On the other hand, a tomogram acquisition apparatus for eye portions such as an OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) apparatus can quantify the state of a disease with an objective measure, and hence is expected to be useful in more accurate examination of a disease. When using a general OCT, the operator determines tomographic imaging parameters (e.g., a target region, imaging range, resolution, and scanning method), and only a local region of an eye portion is imaged/analyzed based on the imaging parameters.
As a technique of supporting tomographic imaging performed by an operator, for example, patent reference 1 discloses a technique associated with a user interface for designating a tomographic imaging range by an OCT on a wide-area image obtained by a fundus camera. In addition, patent reference 2 discloses a technique associated with a user interface for designating a tomographic imaging range by an OCT on a wide-area image obtained by an SLO. According to patent references 1 and 2, it is possible to determine a tomographic imaging range while referring to the state of a wide-area image of the fundus.